Volume I — Transition — From Here to the Living Economy

A woman in a gold silk blouse writing in an open book at her desk, morning light through the window behind her catching the candles. — Plate I.01The Ledger at First Light.A ninety-day plan is not a document. It is a decision that has been given a shape, and then given a morning.

Nº I.01

The Ninety Days

You did not come to this book for a philosophy of economics.

A woman seated among cream linen with two open books, reading, soft light from the window at her left. — Plate I.02The Inventory.An inventory is not a list of what you have. It is the discovery of what you have been using without noticing.

Nº I.02

Where You Already Stand

The previous chapter asked you to spend thirty days looking for the place where your organisation is already regenerative.

A woman and a man seated together in a white gazebo, both writing in notebooks, daylight off the lake behind them. — Plate I.03Two Hands, One Page.An instrument is the moment a conviction acquires a second person. Until somebody else has signed it, it is still only an opinion with a spreadsheet.

Nº I.03

The First Instrument

Two chapters ago you were asked to find the place where your organisation is already regenerative.

A man in a dark suit reading a printed report of charts at his desk, lamplight and daylight meeting on the page. — Plate I.04The Second Column.Nobody gave her a form for the second column. She ruled it herself, in the margin of a document that is otherwise finished, and it is the only part of the page that is about the future.

Nº I.04

Reading a Balance Sheet as a Living System

You can already read a balance sheet.

A woman standing alone in an empty room before a wide window of trees, sepia light running across the floor toward her. — Plate I.05Two Rooms, One Question.A pilot is not a small version of the plan. It is a comparison you built on purpose, in a place where the only difference is the one you made.

Nº I.05

Chapter I.01 gave you a rule for sizing a pilot and asked you to memorise it: the effect must be greater than three times the period-to-period noise, and the cost must fit inside one persuaded person's discretion.

A woman at a broad wooden desk sorting papers, afternoon sun pouring through the tall windows behind her. — Plate I.06The Stack, in Afternoon Light.Capital is never one thing. It is three or four things placed in an order, and the order is the whole design. The stack on the table is not money yet — it is the shape the money will take.

Nº I.06

Bringing the Money With You

You have a result.

A woman and a man talking across a small white table over lunch, a bare wall and a bright window beside them. — Plate I.07The Third Chair.The third chair is the one that decides. A room with two people in it is a conversation. A room with three is a practice that can continue without any particular one of them.

Nº I.07

The Second Circle

You have the number.

A man standing at the head of a long boardroom table, speaking, the room lit evenly through a wall of glass. — Plate I.08The Instrument Left Running.Nothing here has been used for a long time. One thing here has not stopped, and that is the only thing in the room that knows what happened.

Nº I.08

When It Stalls

You did the ninety days.

Two women on floor cushions with cups of tea, turned toward each other in conversation, soft window light. — Plate I.09Two Hands and a Standing Order.An institution cannot change its own rules. It can, on any Tuesday, decide which of its existing rules a new thing belongs under — and that decision is the whole of the transaction.

Nº I.09

The Institutional Handshake

By now you have a result.

A kitchen counter of pale wood with a cutting board, knives and cut vegetables, morning light from the windows beyond. — Plate I.10The Fortieth Kitchen.A thing has scaled when the fortieth person does it right without being watched, and cannot quite tell you why.

Nº I.10

Scaling Without Losing the Thing

You have something that works.

A brass key resting on an old wooden table, a shaft of sunlight falling across it. — Plate I.11The Second Set of Keys.A handover is not a ceremony. It is the moment the building stops needing you, and the only way to find out whether it has arrived is to be there and not intervene.

Nº I.11

Handing It On

You began this volume with a Monday.

The extensions

Three chapters that make the volume usable by practitioners of Luminous Economics and by people inside corporations alike — because they are not different economies, only different vocabularies.

Four colleagues gathered at a long wooden table, looking down at plans spread across it, warm late sun behind them. — Plate I.E1The Whole Treasury, on One Table.Everything a corporation calls treasury, procurement, internal audit and legal is on this table, and all of it reports to her. That is not a shortage of institution. It is the shortest approval path in the economy.

Nº I.E1 · extension

For the Practitioner of Luminous Economics

The eleven chapters you have just read were written for somebody with a quarter, a signature limit and a finance function to persuade.

The chapter

A woman seated on the floor against a cushion, writing in a notebook, pale light from a misted window. — Plate I.E2Eleven Days Before the Sitting.The circled date is when the committee sits. The underlined one is when the papers are due, and it is the only date in the room that is real.

Nº I.E2 · extension

For the Corporation

You have a P&L, a board, an audit committee and a treasury function, and you have just read eleven chapters that keep telling you to go and talk to your auditors.